District Attorney Collin Sims announces that on Wednesday of this week, George Starks, 32, of Pearl River, Louisiana, was sentenced to a mandatory term of life imprisonment for the brutal rape and sexual battery of a child.
The sentencing follows a December 2025 conviction where a St. Tammany Parish jury took only 19 minutes to return a unanimous guilty verdict.
Judge Tara Zeller of Division B handed down the following sentences:
• Count 1: First-Degree Rape of a Child Under Thirteen – Life imprisonment at hard labor, without the benefit of probation, parole, or suspension of sentence.
• Count 2: Sexual Battery Involving a Victim Under Thirteen – 50 years at hard labor, without the benefit of probation, parole, or suspension of sentence.
The judge ordered that these sentences be served concurrently.
The conviction stems from a July 2022 incident in Slidell. Evidence presented by Assistant District Attorneys Iain Dover and Tiffany Dover detailed how Starks lured the victim into his vehicle before driving her to a secluded area at the dead end of Bull Run. There, he forcibly removed her from the car and committed the rape and assault.
The investigation, led by Detective Patrick Rigney of the St. Tammany Parish Sheriff’s Office, was bolstered by surveillance footage from a local gas station and definitive DNA evidence from the St. Tammany Parish Coroner’s Office. Despite Starks’ evolving and contradictory claims during the trial - including a claim that the victim forced his DNA into her possession - the jury found the evidence overwhelming.
